


The Rogue Identity

by gloriouswhisperstyphoon



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: AU - Bourne Identity, Amnesiac Jyn, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Interpol Agent Cassian
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-10
Packaged: 2019-06-19 22:08:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15519663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gloriouswhisperstyphoon/pseuds/gloriouswhisperstyphoon
Summary: A woman is pulled, half-dead from the ocean by a French fishing boat, suffering a total loss of her memories, with no identity or background, but with an incredible knowledge of fighting, languages and killing, pursued by a relentless enemy that she can't remember.





	1. IDENTITY

The first thing the woman felt was  _ cold _ and a burning pain all over her body and then she felt her body hit the water and then the cold again.

_ What was going on?  _

_ Her mind went completely blank and then there was nothing but - _

The coolness against her face and the sting and the burn of salt and water as it filled her mouth and her nose and then she felt everything and nothing all at once - 

The second thing she felt was darkness, an all-pervasive entity surrounding her and then she saw the world go light and then bright and then the world turned red behind her eyes. 

Someone above her was pulling her out of the water and then there was a series of sharp thumps on her chest and then she could feel herself start to splutter, choking on the water in her throat.

She could hear a man’s voice above her. “ Recule! Elle se réveille!” 

She felt herself being rolled to the side and she started to retch, nothing coming up but water.

What language was that, French? She knew it, from somewhere deep in her brain and she tried to respond but nothing came up but more water and the sour taste in her stomach grew and the world started spinning around her and then everything went black.

She woke up in a small, comfortable bed with a man looking over her. Her body reacted almost instantaneously, pulling herself upright, grabbing his wrist and pulling him closer to her before she realised what was going on.

“Where am I?” she managed to croak out.

The man looked at her askance. he asked in a heavily accented voice, holding his free hand up. “You’re alright, you’re safe.” 

She let her vice grip on his arm fall and he patted his chest. 

“My name is Jean. You’re safe. You’re English? I could kind of hear it from your accent. You talked a lot when you were asleep.”

She said nothing. Her throat felt like it had been rubbed raw with a block of sandpaper and her mouth was full of a sour taste. 

“Water,” she croaked out, the cool taste of the water washing away the metallic taste in her mouth.

“Where are you from?” the man asked once she’d drunk her fill, the cold washing blunting the edge of her confusion.

“Where am I?” she repeated. 

_ What was going on? What was happening? _

“You’re just out of Marseilles. On a fishing boat. You were shot twice - two bullets to the back.  We found you floating in the water. You understand me?” he said off slowly, every word seeming to be carefully considered before it left his mouth. 

She nodded.

_ Shot? _

She reached a hand up behind her, trying to feel - yes, there were bandages there. 

The man gave her a reassuring smile and patted her gingerly on the shoulder. “The cold saved you. And the cold water. The wounds are clean - I looked them over, but we’re going to get you to a doctor as soon as we pull into shore.”

Her mind started spinning. What had happened to her? How had she gotten here? Jean put a steadying hand on her shoulder again and she gripped it for support, a solid counterpoint to the whirling thoughts in her mind.

He cocked his head sideways at her. “Who are you, anyway?”

A tumult of thoughts ran through the woman’s head and she tried to wrack her brains for information. 

Who was she? What was her name? Why was she here? 

She was silent for a long moment, before she spoke, her voice full of desperation. “I don’t know!”

He suddenly reached into his pocket, pulling out a tiny slip of paper. “We found this under the skin of your hip. Can you read it?”

The woman gave Jean a sideways glance. “Yes. I can read it, but it’s quite small, what does it say?  _ Gemeinschaft Bank, Zurich? _ ”

Jean nodded. “I think that number is a bank account in Zurich.”

She looked at the paper in her hand, fluttering as her head spun and she gripped it tighter to stop herself losing it, her fingers turning white with the force.

_ She had a bank in Zurich? _

_ Why were the directions hidden underneath her skin? _

_ What was she involved with? _

_ What had happened to her? _

_ Who was she? _

She sat there for a long time before she managed to get out the words, “I don’t remember anything about Zurich.”

Jean was silent for a moment before he squeezed her shoulder one more time and stood up, walking towards the door. “You need to rest up. You’ve clearly been through a lot lately and you need to get your energy back. We’ll be in Marseilles in a few days.”

  
  


\--

  
  


The woman stared at herself in the pitted and cracked cataract surface of a mirror, looking into her green eyes, trying to understand who she had been before she had been reborn from the water. 

She took a deep breath, focusing on the face beyond the cracks and the knowledge that that person must hold. 

She opened her mouth, speaking in perfect French to herself, that enigmatic figure in the mirror. “I don’t know who the hell I am. Do you know who I am? Do you have any idea about what happened to me?”

She sagged a little, the tension of the moment suddenly lost, and wiped the sweat off her brow before she pulled her back straight and looked into the mirror again, this time the words coming out in perfect German. 

“Tell me who I am. If you have any idea about who I am, please stop fucking around and tell me.”

There was no reply, nothing except those empty green eyes staring back at her from the chipped and cracked mirror. 

  
  


\--

 

 

A few days later, she was standing with a few hundred euros in hand, gifted to her by the crew and a set of ill-fitting men’s clothes that they had tried in vain to shorten for her small build, standing in front of the train station in Marseilles. 

“Just a one-way ticket to Zurich, miss?”

She nodded. 

Maybe Zurich would hold the answers that she was looking for. 

“Yes. One way only.”

She held the piece of paper with the bank number clutched tight in her hand as the seaside outside gave way to the green countryside gave way to the mountains of Switzerland and the answers that could be found there. 

  
  


\--

 

 

It was evening by the time she finally reached Zurich, the sky slate grey above her head and the sun having already vanished beyond the horizon, the train terminal in the distance behind her. She was standing in a big public park, the streets already covered in a light blanket of snow. 

She looked at the small roll of cash that she still had, quickly flicking through it. 

Shit.

Not enough for a room for the night.

What was she doing in Zurich anyway?

She shoved her hands in her pockets, stamping her feet to try and get some warmth back into them.

This was a mistake.

Why was she here anyway? This was just a fool’s errand. 

What could a simple bank account tell her about her past?

The frost crunched underfoot and she rubbed at her arms to stay warm.

This was a mistake, but for better or worse, she was stuck here until the bank opened and she could find out why a woman would have a bank account number put under the skin of her hip. 

The woman sat on the park bench and curled in on herself, just waiting for the new day to emerge as her eyes fluttered shut.

She was awoken roughly a few hours later by a pair of men shouting at her.

“Can’t you read the signs?” he said. Ah. That hat. He was a cop.

What language was he speaking? Oh. German. 

Shit, what did a pair of cops want with her?

What was going on?

His partner was talking now, poking her with a baton. “On your feet now, let’s go.”

“Let’s see some identification,” the other one said, looking at her askance.

_ What? _

She opened her mouth to speak, “My papers, I don’t -”

No, they spoke German here.

When she spoke again it was in perfect German, “My papers, they were lost, please -”

The officers didn’t look sympathetic and one gave her a shove with the baton again. “Alright, put your hands up, let’s go.”

His words were punctuated by a sharp prod and the woman responded instinctively, her mind going blank and spinning into motion with a series of fluid movement.

Turn around, moving into a kick.

Catch one cop hard in the chest with her foot, knocking him off his guard. 

Slam her hand into the throat of the other one.

Grab his baton with her spare hand and pull it out of his grip.

Slam it into his head, blood arcing into the air from his broken nose. 

In the corner of her eye, she could see the other cop reaching down to try and grab his holster.

She slammed her foot down on his hand sharply, hearing the sickening crunch from it.

He kept trying to reach down for the gun with his spare hand and she dived onto him, grabbing the gun.

She took a series of deep breaths, her breath fogging up the air in front of her before she realised what had happened.

The woman was kneeling on the cop’s chest, levelling a pistol between his eyes as he begged for his life on the ground.

_ How did she know how to do that _ ?

She closed her eyes and slammed the pistol against the cop’s head. 

She panted for a moment, still kneeling on the ground.

There was blood on her trousers and blood on her hands and  _ how did she know how do to that? _

She looked at the gun in her hand, the pistol held loosely as if she had done it a thousand times before, her movements confident as she stripped it down and aimed it.

_ How many times had she done this before? _

She stopped herself, her mind roiling with emotions, throwing down the gun and running into the darkness.

_ Who was she? _

  
  
  


\--  
  


 

The woman stood in the shadows the next day in front of the Gemeinschaft bank, her coat wrapped around her and the collar pulled up to hide the underside of her face.

Two guards came out the front, unlocking the door as the financial district suddenly started to come to life, the upscale fortresses beginning to loosen a little as the gates opened before her.

Her eyes flickered from side to side instinctively, looking for any sign of danger, before she tucked her chin into the collar of her coat and crossed the road.

The lobby of the bank was cool and sterile, every surface cold and steel, a fortress in truth. 

A receptionist perked up as she walked in, her eyes flicking over the woman’s scruffy appearance. “Can I help you?”

The woman’s voice was hoarse when she responded. “I’m here about a numbered account.”

The receptionist pulled out a pen and a bank card, placing it on the table in front of her and smiling. “Ma’am, if you could just enter your number here so that we can direct you to the right officer.”

She picked up the pen, the numbers fluttering out over the paper, the numbers that she had memorised for hours on end, which had been put in her hip, which might give an answer to what was going on.

The world suddenly started moving quickly around her and she was ushered through a series of gates and biometric security and x-rays and her head was spinning. And yet, somewhere deep in her mind, a little voice was whispering to her the best ways to get out of there, how to get a gun. 

She shook her head slightly and a guard looked over at her, a quizzical expression on his face. He gestured at the biometric scanner in front of her and she placed her hand on it.

Her eyes looked at herself in a mirror, before a flicker of white light passed under her hand and the door in front of her opened, a banker in a perfectly pressed suit standing in front of her.

“Good morning, ma’am. I assume that you’re here about your box?”

She nodded slowly, trying to control her face. 

_ A box? _

_ The number was for a box? _ _  
_

“Yes. I’m here for the box,” she said, every word carefully considered. 

The banker nodded in reply and a guard placed a large safety deposit box on a table, before both left the room and she was left there in complete silence. 

She stood there, looking at the box for a moment. 

All the answers that she wanted were in there. 

She lifted the lid on the box.

A shallow tray lay on top and she pulled out the contents of it. A British passport, a French driver’s license and a handful of credit cards. 

All in the name of Jyn Erso. 

She lifted the objects closer, holding them in her hands.

She looked at herself in the dull reflection of the steel door, pulling her back straight.

“My name is Jyn Erso,” she said, the name sitting comfortably on her tongue. She said it once more. “My name is Jyn Erso.”

She looked back into the box, hoping that it would give her more answers about what had happened to Jyn Erso in Marseilles that she had wound up shot twice in the back and almost been drowned.

There were a few more things in the shallow tray and she pawed through them. 

A packet of tissues.

A pair of contact lenses. 

A hair brush.

Three sticks of gum.

A wristwatch.

A pair of sunglasses.

A sickeningly sharp knife.

She held her breath a moment and lifted the shallow tray out of the box, looking into the deep compartment of the safety deposit box.

_ What the hell? _

Money. Lots of it. Millions of dollars, arranged neatly and wrapped in ten thousand dollar stacks. 

A gun. And a very good one at that too.

Clips of ammo placed near the gun.

And then - 

Five more passports, all clean, crisp and brand new, each with a little card attached to the front of them detailing the identity that it represented.

A Dutch passport.

An American passport. 

A South African one.

A Belgian one.

And there was one that wasn’t there, the card still in place. 

 

Name: Kestrel Dawn

Nationality: British

Place of Issue: Paris, France

Signature Sample

 

Jyn Erso sat there a moment, taking everything in. She had come here in search of one identity and now she had five.

Jyn took a deep breath in, focusing on the room around her.

The cool steel beneath her hands.

The smell of the gunpowder and paper from the box.

She looked at her reflection in the door again.

“My name is Jyn Erso. I live at 121, Rue de la Jardin, Paris.”    


This was too much. She looked around the room to try and work out how to get out of here alive.

Her eyes alighted on a pile of red canvas bags in the corner of the room and she started stuffing everything from the box into it. 

Her hand twitched over the gun a moment before she pushed the thought away and left it in the box. 

She pressed the little button on the table, calling the guard back in, trying to will her heart to beat slower and her mind to stop racing so much.

She smiled at him, a thin little thing. “I’m trying to remember how long it’s been since I was last here.”

The guard thought for a moment before replying, “It must have been about three weeks.”

She schooled her expression into a nonchalant one as he ushered her out of the room and out of the bank.

Jyn tightened her grip on the red bag as she stepped out onto the street, looking for a cab. 

She crossed the street, her eyes looking both ways, her hackles rising.

Something wasn’t quite right here. 

She took a deep breath in.

Focus, Jyn.

Her heart leapt into her throat and sounded like a jackhammer in her ears. 

She looked to her left and saw a parking warden who was in the middle of writing up a ticket staring straight at her.

Jyn forced herself to appear calm. 

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

Paint a smile onto her face and walk away, her grip tight on the red bag. 

The warden still looked suspicious and his hand dropped to his hip.

Her heart skipped a beat.

She should have taken the gun with her.

No - it was a radio.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum. 

Jyn turned and started walking faster, taking a corner sharply, her bag hitting her heavily across the back of her thighs.

A cop looked at her sideways as she walked by.

_ Don’t run, Jyn. _

Another cop came by, this one jogging.

She looked down at his hand.

Oh shit. A radio. 

Jyn took a deep breath and looked down the street, disappearing into the nearest building, the Union Jack fluttering overhead as she ducked into it. 

  
  
  


\---  
  


 

Her heart was still beating incredibly fast and she forced herself to stand still as she waited in line in the passport and visa room, one line for Commonwealth citizens and a marathon line for everyone else.

Jyn scanned the room, her mind racing a thousand miles an hour. 

What was she going to say to them?

What could she say?

Did they know about what had happened with the cops in the park?

A man in front of her was arguing with the embassy staff in a loud London accent, looking as though he were two steps away from losing his temper. “Look, mate. This is not my address anymore. I lost my apartment while I was trying to sort out everything with the embassy and I’ve lost my passport and I can’t get back to the UK.”

An embassy clerk came up to him, his voice carrying across the room. “Mister Rook, I’m going to need you to lower your voice.”

The man, Rook, grabbed onto the clerk’s arm. “My mum’s dying. I need to get back to the UK and you’re saying that you can’t help me?”

The clerk shook his head. “If you can’t get us valid ID, we won’t be able to help you.”

Rook looked desperate. “Look, someone stole all my stuff, ok? I lost my wallet and my passport and I need to get back to London.”

Another shake of the clerk’s head. 

Jyn tore herself away, her eyes flicking around the room.

Was that man looking at her?

Someone standing in the corner just touched their hand to an earpiece and was coming closer.

Ba-dum. Ba-dum.

The clerk in front of her waved her towards her and Jyn pasted a smile onto her face, keeping an eye on the suit walking ever closer.

“Are you a British citizen, miss?”

Jyn’s hand tightened on her bag and she smiled. “Yes, I think - I am.”

The clerk looked unamused. “Either you are or you aren’t miss. Do you have a passport?”

She nodded, her voice hesitant. “It’s a little - complicated.”

“Do you have your passport, miss?”

The suit was coming closer and in the corner of her eye, she could see him pulling out his phone.

She turned to the clerk. “Look, I don’t think -”

“You waited in line, miss!”

In the corner of her eyes, she could see a scruffy face and a pair of suspicious dark eyes and she twisted away, making for the lobby.

She twisted through the crowd, pushing through, her hand a vice on her bag. 

She could hear the suit’s voice behind her.

Focus, Jyn.

You need to get out of here. 

There was a break in the crowd for a moment, next to a window and Jyn looked out at the street. 

Shit.

Cops everywhere. 

She stood still for a moment, her options racing through her mind.

She couldn’t stay in the embassy, she couldn’t get out. 

Jyn looked towards the elevators and then towards the main building.

Shit.

Marines.

Metal detectors. 

She bit her lip. 

There! Where the crowd was. 

She ducked into the human traffic, feeling the hair prickle on the back of her neck, trying to get to the larger of the two gates.

If she could get there -

A voice started shouting from behind her.

“You! With the red bag! Stop right there!”

Jyn glanced back. 

The suit was pointing directly at her and a Royal Marine was raising his M-16 pistol. 

Out of the corner of her eyes, she could see a Marine behind her and she slowly raised her hands in the air. 

Her mind flashed into action and she swung her bag heavily into the gun of the man behind her.

The other guard tried to grab at her.

Duck under him.

Grab his arm.

Pull it back and stamp on it.

A sickening crack rang out and someone in the crowd started to scream.

She crouched and quickly grabbed the marine’s dropped gun. 

The crowd started to move around them and she could hear the suit starting to shout. 

“No! Hold your fire!”

Jyn started running hard through the building, making for the fire escape, swinging the gun as she went.

Footsteps started to echo behind her.

She started to run up the stairs, taking them two, then three at a time, running as hard as she could.

An alarm started blaring above her head and the sound of frightened people could be heard through the doors. 

She threw open a door, bursting into a room, closing the fire escape entrance behind her.

Shit. 

Nothing here.

Just a butler’s prep area, starched tablecloths and silverware everywhere. 

Jyn started running towards the main staircase, dropping the gun as she went.

She swore that she could see the suit in the flow of people behind her.

She tucked the bag as closely as she could into her clothes and started screaming as she moved with the crowd, “No! Take the back stairs! The other way! They’ve got a bomb!”

The crowd, as one, started to mob back from the hallway and Jyn seized her chance to move.

A series of screams echoed out from the floor above. 

She ran into a conference room, shoving a chair underneath.

How the hell was she supposed to get out of here?

Jyn took a breath and looked around the cavernous space.

A giant table.

Chairs scattered everywhere.

Paper everywhere.

A huge wall of windows.

Jyn ran over, looking down at the sheer drop.

A series of shouts started from the other side of the door. 

“Blow the door open!”

The next sound was the sound of gunfire against the door. 

She took a breath, opening the windows and climbing out onto the ledge. 

There was silence above her and then someone started shouting. 

“Check the closets! There’s a kitchen back there! She can’t have gone far!”

Jyn hung there for a moment, waiting until there was only silence above her.

Beneath her foot, she could hear a pebble fall off the ledge. 

There was no way out of here.

She looked down.

Did she know how to do this?

Reach over to a drainpipe.

Swing over to a more secure ledge.

Drop down onto an air conditioner.

Reach up to grab the ledge before the air conditioner gave way.

All the meanwhile, Jyn could feel the red bag starting to slip off her shoulder. 

She reached up with that arm to steady herself from where she hung from the ledge and the red bag slipped -

It landed with a soft thump on the snow beneath the ledge.

She looked down.

Shit. 

She pulled herself to grab another drainpipe beneath her.

Let go for just a moment.

Grab another pipe. 

She took a deep breath.

Let go and roll as she dropped the last five metres. 

She grabbed the bag and started to run out of the alley when a voice came from behind her and she wheeled around.

The suit.

“Stand down, miss.”

She looked at him properly for the first time since this had all happened. 

Scruffy hair, beard, hard dark eyes. 

The gun in his hands was completely still.

She loosened her grip on the red bag for a moment.

“Look, I don’t know who the hell you are, but you’re making a terrible mistake.”

He was completely calm.

“I assure you, I’m not.”

She went to lift her hands up before she slammed the heel of her hand into his throat, grabbing the gun with her spare hand. 

He struggled for a moment before she slammed the butt of the gun into his head.

Jyn threw the gun into a nearby snowdrift, reaching into his jacket to find -

Oh.

Cassian Andor, Interpol Agent.

Why was Interpol hunting her?

That wasn’t important right now. 

She dropped his ID badge and grabbed her bag, forcing herself to leave the alley at a brisk walk.

  
  


\--

 

A few moments of walking and she could hear the sound of someone yelling from a nearby alleyway and she poked her head in to see what was going on.

She recognised that man from somewhere - 

Oh.

That man! Rook! The embassy! Before everything had gone to shit.

He was kicking the wheel of a beaten up little car before he looked up and saw her.

“What do you want?” he asked, a note of nervousness in his voice.

“I need a ride.”

He started shaking his head. “Lady, there is no amount of money that could make me do that.”

“I just need a ride.”

He still seemed scared. 

She took a breath and forced herself to relax. “Look, I’m not trying to scare you.”

He looked sideways at her. “It’s a little late for that.”

“Look, there’s been a situation here and -”

“Please leave miss -”

Jyn closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll pay you ten thousand dollars to take me to Paris.”

He looked scared and she kept pushing.

“Look, you don’t want the police as much as I do. I’ll give you ten thousand now, ten thousand when we get to Paris.”

By now, she was standing on the other side of the car from him.

She reached slowly down into the red bag and pulled out a stack of ten thousand, throwing it over to him.

He looked down at the money for a moment before he gestured at the car.

“Get in.”


	2. SUPREMACY

 

The first part of the ride passed in excruciating silence, Jyn looking out at the countryside outside the window as Bodhi drove.

He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment and Jyn flicked a glance over at him, raising an eyebrow. 

“You know - you might as well just kill me instead of giving me the money.”

Jyn looked over at him, alarmed.

Shit.

What did he know?

What had he done?”

He raised a hand off the steering wheel to calm her down. 

“Look, I was trying to make a joke. Not the best one, but it’s hard to be funny in the circumstances.”

She sank back into the seat and looked out the window again. 

The car suddenly jerked, nearly rear-ending a truck. 

“Sorry! Look, you know, Jyn, you’re scaring me a little? Can I say that? Because you’re kind of freaking me out.”

Jyn tried to give him a reassuring smile, which probably looked more like a grimace. “I’m sorry. What did you want me to do?”

“I don’t know! Smile! Sneeze!” His hand flicked the radio on. “What kind of music do you like?”

A real smile came across her face, a small one. Damn his perkiness. “I don’t know.”

“What does that mean?”

She shrugged. “I just don’t know. Listen to whatever you want.”

They sat in silence for a moment, Bodhi’s fingers starting to twitch on the steering wheel. 

She suddenly burst out, her need to fill the silence growing. “I don’t know who I am.”

Bodhi laughed. “Join the club. No one does, really.”

Jyn grinned. “No, I mean. I don’t actually know who I am. I can’t remember anything earlier than a week ago.”

She looked over at his incredulous face. “I’m utterly serious about this.”

“Like amnesia?” he said slowly, turning to face her properly.

She nodded. 

He turned back to the road, nodding slowly. “Ok.”

Jyn’s hand tightened on the red bag in her lap and she forced herself to sink deeper into the seat, letting her spine curve. 

“Tell me about your family,” she said.

Rook startled a moment and the car almost veered into the next lane. “What?”

She shrugged. “Since I woke up, I’ve just had this kind of,” she made a vague gesture around her head. “Headache, like a constant thing in my head. It’s nice to hear you talk.”

Bodhi looked incredibly confused and whispered, “What the hell is happening?” under his breath in soft Urdu.

Out of instinct, she replied in the same language. “If I knew, I would tell you.”

In the corner of her view, she could see his hand tighten on the steering wheel. “Ummm. So, it’s just me and my sister at home, you know? With my mum and my uncle Adil, yeah? So this one time, Soraya and I decided to -”

She let herself relax as the countryside vanished and images of Bodhi’s childhood started running through her mind. 

  
  
  


**\--**

  
  
  


She woke to Bodhi’s gentle prodding of her shoulder and the smell of coffee.

“Hey. Jyn? I didn’t know if you liked coffee or tea so I got you both.”

She smiled. “Sorry I slept. Did you do this for me?”

Bodhi shrugged. “For twenty thousand dollars? I’ll throw in breakfast too. Plus, you kind of looked like you needed the sleep.”

Jyn swung her legs out of the car, stretching all her sore and abused muscles. “Thanks so much, Bodhi. I really needed it.”

He held the two cups out to her again. “Which of these do you want to drink? Tea or coffee?”

She gave a suspicious glare, before biting out the words, “I’ve never actually tried those yet.”

He shrugged again. “Then try both. We can work out if Jyn Erso is a coffee or tea person.”

She took a quick sip from both before poking the lid of the coffee. “I like this one better. The tea just tastes like grass clippings.”

Bodhi raised an eyebrow. “And you have a lot of experience with the taste of grass clippings?”

She threw her head back and laughed for the first time in weeks. “I guess I have.”

Jyn reached into her red bag and passed a stack of money over to Bodhi. “Thanks so much for all your help.”

They stood there awkwardly in the alleyway of her street for a moment, before she gestured to the door. 

“Do you want to come inside with me? For some grass clippings?”

He looked confused for a moment. “Look, I’m not really looking for a relationship or anything right now -”

What the hell was he talking about? 

Oh.

Oh.

She laughed.

“No, I’m not looking for anything right now. I just thought you might want a break before you go off to wherever you go.” 

He looked at her. “Well, look, with that story, you do have me pretty curious.”

She laughed and pointed to the doorway. “Then let’s go.”

The door opened smoothly under her touch and an elderly concierge came out to greet her. 

"Madamoiselle Erso, you’re back!”

She pasted a smile onto her face, looking around at the unfamiliar surroundings.

The man was looking at her as though he’d never seen her looking this scruffy before. Which, if she had enough money to afford a house in the centre of Paris, that did make sense.

“I’m very sorry, but I think that I’ve lost my key.”

The concierge nodded and Jyn was met with a wave of haughty French disdain as he stepped aside and handed her a key.

The walk up to her apartment was long and steep.

From behind her, Bodhi grunted as they came up onto the last landing. “You couldn’t have chosen a place with less stairs?”

She put the key in the door, closing her eyes and hoping that this would give her an idea of who she was - her family, her life, who she had been before she had been pulled from the water with two bullet holes and no memory. 

The door swung open in front of her and -

Nothing.

It was a completely sterile place, almost devoid of personal touch. 

Bodhi started walking through the apartment. “This is a big place. It’s really yours?”

Jyn shrugged, looking through the magazines and files on the coffee table. “I guess?”

There was nothing to be told about who she had been there.

She stood up and walked into the office, flicking through the folders there, calling out to Bodhi, “I think that I worked in shipping?”

All the files on the table were about boats and the coffee table had been full of books about them.

Ship registries.

Ship schedules. 

Catalogues. 

Bodhi grinned. “See? It’s all starting to come back. Mind if I grab myself that cup of grass clippings that you promised me?”

She nodded and sat in the seat, the leather soft and welcoming, almost as if it remembered her presence. 

On the table, she could see the faint outline in the dust of where a laptop had once been. 

She looked in the desk drawers.

No laptop there.

That was odd.

She found a small diary in the drawer and started flicking through it.

The last date with an entry in it was three weeks before she had been pulled from the ocean.

There was only a single phone number, with the words Hotel Marboeuf underlined next to it. 

So she had stayed in a hotel three weeks before the accident.

“Bodhi?” she called out. “Can I get you to look something up for me?”

“Yeah, sure, Jyn. What do you need?”

“I need you to look up the Hotel Marboeuf for me.”

There was a moment of silence from the kitchen and Jyn kept flicking through the pages of her diary. 

There was next to nothing in it that was personal. 

Just phone numbers and appointments and tourist photos that appeared to have been taken all over Europe.

_ Who was she? _

“Hey Jyn, I’m just going to put the kettle on.”

“Sure thing.”

She wandered into the bedroom, throwing open the wardrobe. 

Nothing there except for a huge selection of women’s clothing. She looked down at the floor of the wardrobe and grabbed a bag, starting to shove some clothes into it, as well as the contents of the red bag, and get changed herself into clothes that actually fit. 

She called out again. “Bodhi?”

It was disturbingly quiet outside. 

She looked through the drawers.

Surely she would -

There it was. 

She picked a gun up in her hand, stripping and cocking it.

Bodhi’s voice suddenly called out. “Sorry, Jyn! Just got distracted for a moment!”

She held it ready.

Something was wrong here. 

She ran a finger through the dust on the bookshelves. 

There were books missing and someone had been in to take her laptop recently. 

“Bodhi, what did you manage to find out about the hotel?”

She started to pad out quietly to the kitchen, pulling the backpack full of clothes on. 

A kettle started to whistle. 

“It looks like it’s a hotel in Paris? Not sure why you’re looking it up when your place is basically a hotel already.”

Jyn kept her back carefully to the wall, making sure that any sightlines were masked by her standing in the corner. 

“No, I’m just looking it up for research. I think someone I know is staying there,” she forced her voice to stay light and airy and tucked the gun into the back of her trousers.

“Oh, that’s good.” There were footsteps coming closer to her and then -

Bodhi came into her line of view holding two mugs, his face backlit by the light from the window. “Hey Jyn, I made you a coffee. Thought you might not appreciate grass clippings.”

She smiled, her face still tense.

Something was very wrong here. 

There!

There was a noise from outside.

Bodhi?

No. Bodhi was here.

Shit. 

Footsteps.

Someone was coming to the apartment.

She turned to the door, drawing the gun in a fluid motion, holding it ready. 

She crept along the wall.

Bodhi looked confused. “Jyn, what’s going on?”

The glass from the window suddenly shattered and Jyn jerked back instantaneously, her face suddenly covered by something warm.

Oh God.

Blood.

Bodhi.

She looked down at where he lay lifeless on the ground, a neat red hole in the centre of his forehead.

Oh God.

He had just been trying to help her.

What was going on?

There was a loud banging at the door.

Shit. 

How was she going to get out of here?

He had just been trying to get back to see his mother.

No.

Another shot rang out, this one closer to where she was hiding.

She swallowed down the bile in her throat.

She needed to get out of here first.

She could mourn later.

Climb up onto a chair and unscrew a lightbulb.

Throw it past the window. 

It exploded into a fine spray of glass, resting on Bodhi’s body almost like snowflakes.

Right.

There was a sniper outside. 

Shit.

The banging at the door only got louder and she could hear it about to fly off its hinges.

She took a deep breath, holding the gun ready and standing by the door. 

Someone slammed into her as a bullet went flying above both of their heads.

Jyn grabbed them, pulling herself under and yanking their arm over her head.

He went down with a loud groan.

Jyn looked over at him.

The Interpol agent?

Shit.

He suddenly tackled her again, knocking the gun out of her hand. 

Another bullet fired above her head. 

She could see something out of the corner of her eye and -

Bodhi.

She drew in a deep breath to regain her lost focus and suddenly -

Her hands were being drawn backwards and she was being put into cuffs, the agent - Andor - keeping her in front of him as they backed towards the door, Bodhi’s body in her line of sight the whole way, her mind roiling with emotions and too full to hear what the agent was saying.

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  


She sat in the car quietly, trying to block out the image of Bodhi’s lifeless face. 

From the front seat, she could hear the agent saying something to her. 

She ignored him.

She needed to get out of here.

The sniper would be back soon.

“ - hello? Can you hear me?”

She glared at him. “I’m capable of hearing, thank you very much.”

There was a pause.

“Well, from the way you were ignoring me, it sort of seemed like it. Sorry about your friend by the way. He seemed like a good man.”

Jyn nodded. 

What could she need from him.

She just needed to get out.

Now.

The car came to a stop and she looked to see a traffic jam.

Shit. 

They were sitting ducks. 

"So tell me, how does a woman that is the spitting image of dead British national wind up in Zurich -”

She could see movement over the rooftops from the corner of her eye. 

“You need to let me out of these cuffs.”

The agent blinked. “I’m sorry?”

She leaned forward in her seat as best she could. “You need to let me out of these cuffs. There’s a sniper that’s going to kill both of us if you don’t. They just tried to kill you.”

Andor gave her a sidelong glance. “How do I know that you’re not going to kill me as soon as I let you out? I saw what you did in the embassy.”

A flicker of movement from the rooftop. 

She dived at Andor, knocking him forward in his seat as the windows of his car shattered.

“You can’t trust me, but I can stop them!” she yelled.

A click of the cuffs.

She tested her movements smoothly as Andor opened the car door. 

“What’s your plan to get us out of here?”

“Us? There is no us!”

Another bullet hit the car.

Around them, bystanders started to scream.

Jyn started to run towards where she’d seen that flicker of movement, ducking into cover in an alleyway as a bullet nearly missed her.

She locked eyes with Andor, who had pulled out his gun.

He gave her a nod.

She started to climb up towards the rooftop, racing up the fire escapes. 

Sirens started to echo out down the street.

Her heart started pounding in her heart.

There he was in the middle of a rooftop garden, aiming down at the street. 

At Andor. 

She threw herself at the sniper, knocking him over. 

He flipped them over, using his greater strength.

The brilliant sheen of a knife as it flashed in his hand.

Jyn grabbed the hilt, pushing back with all her strength. 

She gasped involuntarily as the knife moved closer to her throat, nicking the skin.

She brought her knee up between his legs, knocking him over as he groaned, grabbing the knife from where he dropped it.

They both held themselves ready, Jyn holding her knife loosely in her hand.

He dived at her and she kicked a loose chair at him.

Then the world slowed down around her for a moment. 

He instinctively ducked and in her mind’s eye, she could see where he was moving.

The world sped up for a moment and he was suddenly clutching his neck where a knife now sat. 

Jyn looked down at her hand. 

Nothing there. 

There was the sound of panting from behind her as she knelt down and started rummaging through the man’s backpack, pulling out his phone and pressing his finger to it to unlock it. She handed the phone to Cassian.

“Why are you trying to kill me?” she asked the dying man, blood starting to bubble up at the corner of his lip.

He clamped his jaw down tight, almost as though even in death he was trying to protect his secrets. 

Jyn shook him, all the pent up stress of the last few days bleeding through. “Why are you trying to kill me?”

Cassian’s voice came from behind her and he held the phone closer to her face. Oh shit. They had photos of Jyn being arrest, Cassian’s face clearly in view. “Hey. They have photos of us. Why do you have a picture of me?”

Jyn’s face blanched and she shook the assassin. “Why are you doing this?”

Cassian looked panicked. “Why does he have photos of us?”

As quick as lightning, the assassin shoved her off and suddenly started running, faster than she thought that a man of his injuries could have and threw himself off the roof.

The sirens echoed ever closer and Cassian grabbed her. “We need to go. Now. Before they can set up the perimeter.”

She could see his eyes dart around the rooftop and at the exits that were closing off as they spoke.

Jyn looked around at the crowd that was gathering around the dead man and pulled her arm free. “I can get us out of here. Then we can work it out.  I'll explain it then. Once we're safe.”

She turned to face him properly. “Trust goes both ways.”

He nodded.

They climbed down the fire escape as fast as they could, running into the crowds that had gathered around the dead man. 

Amidst all the chaos, no one saw a small motorbike with two passengers pull out of a small alleyway.

  
  


 

\---

  
  
  


Barely an hour later, they were sitting in a tiny hotel room, a tiny flop that Cassian had somehow managed to find, Jyn sitting cross-legged on the bed and Cassian running his hands through his hair as he paced the length of the tiny room. 

“How did I manage to get in this situation? I was just supposed to be investigating  _ one _ murder. Not,” he waved his hand. “End up on the run with a woman who looks exactly like the dead woman I’m supposed to be investigating, who can somehow kill better than anyone I’ve ever seen?”

Jyn shrugged. “Look, if I knew, I’d tell you.”

He stopped in his tracks to look directly at her. “What does that mean?”

She stared him directly in the eyes, pulling her backpack onto the bed and opening it. “As long as you don’t say that it’s stupidly outlandish.”

He shrugged and Jyn upended the contents of the bag onto the bed, spreading the passports and the neatly wrapped stacks of money out as his eyes went wide.

“I can’t remember anything from more than three weeks ago when I got shot twice in the back. The sailors that pulled me out of the water found a piece of paper under my hip that led to a safety deposit box in Zurich, which led me to the embassy, which led me to  _ here _ .”

She watched his eyes become more and more disbelieving with the more that she said. 

Jyn bit her lip.

How to make him believe?

He started pacing again, muttering under his breath.

Jyn spoke slowly. “I think I was an assassin. There was a gun in the safety deposit box and all this money and then all the passports.”

“That doesn’t mean anything, lots of people know how to use guns. I know how to use a gun.”

“I scaled a 10 metre wall to get out of the embassy. I just - climbed out the window and I just did it - my body already knew how to do that.”

“People do really strange things when they’re scared. And lord knows that you were running from something that entire time.”

“But I come in here, and I’m instantly looking at sightlines and the exits - I know that I can’t sit with my back towards the door.”

Cassian ran his hand through his hair. “You’re paranoid. You’ve been trained. Most people with army training are paranoid like that. You were shot. It’s natural to be that paranoid.”

She took a deep breath and Cassian paused, leaning against the wall. “Say that I believed this crazy story, though. An amnesiac assassin on the run. That doesn’t explain anything,” he said.

Jyn leaned forward, both hands flat on the bed, her voice getting faster with everything that she said. “I can tell you the license plate numbers of all three cars out front. I can tell you that the woman that was sitting in the lobby is left-handed and that the concierge weighs two hundred and fifteen pounds and knows how to handle himself. I know that the best first place to look for a gun is the cab of that grey truck outside.  I know that at this altitude I can run flat out for half a mile before I lose my edge. I knew that Bodhi Rook was my first, best option out of Zurich. How do I know all that? How can I know all that and not know who I am? How is that possible?”

He took a deep breath. “I don’t know what to think. Parts of it make sense, but it still sounds so outlandish.”

She leaned back, flopping back onto the bed. “You think? I’ve been living it.”

Cassian came around to sit next to where her head lay in the middle of the bed. “I’m not sure what’s going on. But I do know that they’re going to be hunting us.”

She nodded. “Why were you in Zurich anyway?”

He let out a short little laugh. “I was supposed to be investigating the death of this British national who vanished from Marseilles in very odd circumstances. And then I found out that she had visited Zurich a week earlier for this specific bank and I tracked her back there. Didn’t work, of course and then I saw her doppelganger in the embassy and then -”

Jyn turned her head towards him. “Why didn’t it work with the bank?”

“Ok, now I can believe that you really lost your memory. The Swiss banks are notorious for their security. No one can get any information about any of their clients.”

“So you were just in the embassy?”

“No. The bank called the police to say that one of their dead clients had somehow returned from the grave and they called me. I figured that you’d be heading towards the embassy.”

Jyn bit her tongue. 

This didn’t quite add up. 

Cassian looked down into her eyes and sighed. “Look, I know that you don’t believe me, but we’re in the same boat together now. You can frisk me if you want - I don’t have any communications devices on me.”

The silence echoed through the little room.

Nothing could be heard except the ticking of the clock on the wall and it permeated the room, a tinny little sound.

Jyn took a breath.

He had already proven himself while fighting the sniper.

And something in her mind told him that he was a friend. 

What was she supposed to do now?

She shook her head. “I don’t really need to do that. We’re in the same boat now, anyway.”

She opened her eyes and saw him looking at her, a strange light in his eyes. “What are you thinking?” she asked.

He took a deep breath. “You know, we’re in this situation, but I don’t even know your name.”

She grinned. “Jyn Erso.”

He smiled at her, a big brilliant one that reached his eyes and took at least a dozen years off his face. “Cassian Andor. Nice to meet you.”

Jyn closed her eyes, revelling in her relative safety for a moment before Cassian cleared his throat and she looked at him.

Cassian licked his lips. “So. Now.” He closed his eyes a moment, thinking through something. “Interpol protocol states that from this point on, fugitives are going to need three things: a place to stay, money and food.”

Jyn sat up, her eyes flicking to the bag of supplies that they had bought from the little convenience store nearby. “Yeah, so we’re going to have to change our appearances. You’re too noticeable right now. And then - I don’t know what our next move is.”

She grabbed the bag, passing a pair of scissors and a razor to Cassian before she grabbed the bleach out of the bag.

  
  


 

\--

  
  
  


Jyn stared at herself in the dingy, cracked hotel mirror, a towel wrapped around herself and her newly blonde hair hanging loose around her shoulders. 

Who was she?

Who had she been?

She took a deep breath and started speaking in fluent Spanish. “I don’t know what I’m doing here. Just tell me who is trying to kill me so that I can get out of here.”

There was a soft knock from outside the door. “Jyn? Are you ok in there?”

She turned around and there he was -

Cassian with his newly shorn hair and all his scruffy beard shaved off. 

Jyn forced herself to smile. “You don’t quite look like yourself.”

He held out his hand and Jyn looked down to see -

The scissors.

Cassian touched her shoulder. “Do you want me to cut it for you?”

She nodded, a watery little smile.

Why was she so attached to her appearance?

She had only known herself for three weeks.

She tightened her lips and listened to the soft snip-snip-snip of the scissors behind her. 

Why was she crying so much?

The sound of the scissors stopped behind her and she could see Cassian moving closer to her in the mirror.

His hand rested gently on her face, and she could feel the heat of his other hand through the towel, settling on her hip.    
  
Twisting in his arms, placing her own hand on his face, she paused for a moment, looking up into his eyes.    
  
He isn't moving. He isn't pulling away.   
  
Leaning in, her lips pressed against his, soft and gentle, and his pressed back for a long moment. It swarmed her, suddenly, this feeling of softness, the coolness of his lips, the warmth of his hands, and then-   
  
Why was he pulling away?   
  
"Jyn, you're not thinking clearly," he murmured, his voice soft as his hand runs over her face, thumb brushing over her cheek. Her eyes close for a moment, and then her hand runs up, fingers going into the hair on the back of his neck.   
  
She could stay here like this, just like this, except she  _ knew  _ what she wanted, knew what she wanted for the first time in as long as she could remember, something she craved, something she was aching for. As she opened her eyes, she looked up at him, saw him searching. "I've never been so sure of anything in my life."   
  
The hand on her hip tightened, and the hand on her face fell down, moves between them to tug at the edge of the towel, pulling it from where it was tucked away. He wouldn’t let go until she nodded, and she felt it hitting the floor at her feet before his body pressed against hers. She was cold for a split second, and then it's just warmth, warmth as her hands move down the back of his neck, running into the jacket hanging over his shoulders, and she pushed it down, down both arms at the same time.   
  
She was warm for the first time in days, since she had woken up in that cold water, in a way that nothing else could explain. She doesn't know anything, doesn't know what's going on, but she knows what she wants, knows what she wants with him. She knows she's lost, but right now, there's nowhere she would rather find herself.   
  
And when he kisses her again, and there’s nothing more to think than   _ oh _ .

  
  


\--

  
  
  


Jyn woke up, wrapped in Cassian’s arms and warm for the first time that she could remember, her head resting warm against his chest. 

For the first time in weeks, she couldn’t hear that little voice in the back of her mind telling her that she needed to run, that she needed to get out of here, that they were going to kill her. She took a deep breath, running a hand over his chest, feeling the warmth and the play of muscles beneath the skin and relaxed.

All there was, all that she could feel was Cassian. 

There was a little hitch in his chest and a small rumble and she ran her hand over where she had felt it, his voice rumbling through her. “Have you thought about what happens now?”

She took a deep breath, shaking her head slightly. 

Jyn chewed on her lip, feeling the tension of the last few weeks starting to ebb and flow with the sound of Cassian’s breathing. 

“I’m not sure what we do now.”

There was a pause for a long moment, his hand moving up and down her back, steady and solid amidst her thinking. 

“We can either stay and try to work out what happened to me,” her voice trailed off.

“Or?” There was an undercurrent of tension to Cassian’s voice that she hadn’t heard since the embassy.

“Or we can get out of Paris. Someone wants me dead and they don’t care how many die before that.”

Cassian’s chest rose and fell under her head. 

Up and down, up and down.

She pulled herself up to look him directly in the eye. “I don’t want you to be hurt, Cassian.”

His face had a wry little smile on it. “I think it’s a little late for that now, Jyn.”

She took a deep breath. “How do we get out of Paris? They’ll be watching all the bus terminals and the airports.”

His breathing was soft in the silence that fell over the room. 

Through the walls, she could hear the voices of people moving about, the streets of Paris starting to come alive and she lost herself in the cacophony of noise. 

“I know someone outside of Paris,” he said quietly. 

Jyn shook her head. “No. I can’t do that to them. It’s too dangerous.”

“We have no other choice. We have to get out of the city.”

She tightened her lips. “I’m not putting anyone else in danger for my sake.”

“They can handle themselves. And it’s just for one night while we try to work out what’s going on.”

  
  
  
  


\---

  
  
  
  


Cassian’s idea of getting out of Paris turned out to be a little farmhouse out in the French countryside, a little serene place with perfect sightlines everywhere.

As they were approaching the house in the car they’d bought from a reasonably shady dealer, another car started to approach and Jyn’s grip on her bag tightened. 

She could hear voices coming from inside the car.

“No, it’s ok, Poe, you can play with Beebee in a moment, you just need to get out of the car for mummy, ok?”

Jyn looked over at Cassian, her eyes wild, whispering frantically. “There’s a child here?”

He pressed his lips together and squeezed her shoulder. “We don’t have another choice, Jyn.”

She held her head straight, her grip on the backpack an utter vice. “We have to go, Cassian. I don’t want anyone to get hurt - oh shit.”

A man had walked out of the car, waving over at Cassian. “Hey there, brother! Who’s the lady with you?”

Cassian had a strained smile on his face. “It’s alright, Kes, we were just going to leave -”

“No, you should come inside - who’s the lady with you?”

“She’s a friend, we met in Paris -”

“She seems good for you, why don’t you come -”

Jyn stood stock-still, not sure whether they were going to go into the house, if they were going to go back to Paris -

She felt someone gently nudging her in the back and -

Jyn took a deep breath, repressing the urge to attack anyone, instead allowing herself to be mutely led into the little farmhouse. 

Barely a few moments later, she was sitting with a large mug of coffee making awkward small talk with Kes’s irrepressible wife Shara, who was bouncing the child (Poe, his name was) on her lap. 

“So, Jyn, where are you from?”

There was a long awkward pause between them, echoing and stretching out like a rubber band.

She pasted a smile onto her face. “England.”

Shara blinked for a moment, taking the information in, before smiling again, this time a little sharper at the edges. “What’s it like there?”

Jyn shrugged, “I don’t really remember much of it.”

Cassian and Kes’s voices echoed out from the main room and Jyn took the excuse to have a sip of her coffee. 

It really was good coffee, smooth and rich on her tongue. She hadn’t had anything this good since - 

Since Paris.

And Bodhi.

She shook her head, trying to clear the whirl of emotions from her mind.

“...We don’t want to impose on you, Kes, we’ve got a long drive ahead of us -”

Shara called out from the kitchen table. “Cassian, shut up and sit down. It’ll be just like the old days again! At least stay the night.”

Cassian came back into the kitchen, looking Jyn straight in the eyes and she placed her hand on Shara’s. 

“It’s perfectly fine, Shara, you’ve already done enough for us. We can find a motel.” she said. 

Kes shook his head. “The next hotel is about 2 hours from here and it’s not particularly pretty. Just stay here instead. Do you need one bed or two?”

“That’s really nice of you, Kes, but we really need -”

“You guys can leave first thing in the morning. Crack of dawn. I insist,” Kes said, his hand resting on his wife’s shoulder. 

Cassian looked at Jyn and she gave a short, sharp nod. 

They had no other choice. 

Jyn sat in their little bedroom that night, the emotions and the pent up rage finally catching up to her, her hair still damp and her cheeks wet. 

Cassian reached across her to pull her close to him, his heartbeat a steady rhythm beneath her hand and she felt herself relaxing, her muscles untensing.

They lay there in silence, nothing except the sound of the wind on the shutters outside. 

He suddenly shifted slightly under her, and she pulled her head up to look at him, raising an eyebrow. 

Words weren’t necessary, he knew what she was thinking. 

He took a deep breath, his chest rising and falling as he thought something through.

“You know, Jyn. It doesn’t matter who you were before. It’s who you want to be. That’s all that matters.”

There was a long pause and the darkness and the silence felt like old friends around them.

His heartbeat was still steady beneath her and she smiled softly at him. 

“We have this money. We have what we have. I had a life before this and now, I don’t know, maybe I have more, maybe I have nothing but -”

Jyn laid her head down in the crook of his shoulder, draping a leg over his hip as he kept speaking, his warmth everywhere around her.

“I say we leave here. We leave this place behind. We go until we can’t go anymore.”

She bit her lip. “You would do that?”

His arm tightened around her shoulders, pulling her closer. “That’s who I want to be.”

They lay there in silence for what felt like hours, just holding each other, their thoughts racing with visions of their future.

  
  
  


\---

  
  
  
  


Jyn woke early the next morning, pulling on a coat and staring out of the farmhouse windows and breathing deeply, holding a mug of coffee in her hands.

There was a voice from behind her and she wheeled about, only to see -

Kes grinned. “Christ, you’re up early.”

There was the sound of crockery clattering behind her. 

“Bless you for making coffee, though.”

She smiled into her cup. “It’s good coffee. Thanks for letting us stay here.”

“Cassian wasn’t lying about you, you know. He said you were a real spitfire.”

She smiled and looked back out at the scenery.

“It’s beautiful here.”

“You can stay longer if you want. You guys look like you could use a few days of rest.”

She shook her head. “Bad things happen to people around me.”

He laughed. “I’m sure I can handle it. I’ve had bad shit happen to me before.”

“Not this sort of trouble.”

Something moved out on the horizon. 

What was that?

Her hackles rose and Kes put a hand on her shoulder that she batted away.

She turned to him, her eyes wide.

“Do you have a basement?”

“What?”

“Do you have a basement?”

He nodded. 

“Ok, get your family and Cassian into the basement and don’t come out until I tell you to. If I’m not back in 3 hours, tell Cassian to get my bag and get you out of here.”

She shoved him to make her point clear.

There was a shotgun in this house somewhere, she’d seen it on the way in.

Shit.

There it was. 

She cocked it in her hands, running out of the house and into the fields.

There was a strange car out near the farmhouse.

Aim and pull the trigger.

The car exploded into a giant ball of flames and she saw a quick movement, a dark head against the snow. 

She stood behind the giant fireball, letting the smoke mask her movements, as she pulled her coat over her face and walked behind a copse of trees, running out as hard as she could once she lost her cover.

She’d seen that flicker from somewhere out in the fields.

Something flashed in the distance and she threw herself to the ground as the loud rat-tat-tat of bullets fired over her head. 

Where had that muzzle flash been from?

She ran onwards, as far from the farmhouse as she could manage. 

They couldn’t be hurt. 

Not for her.

A bird called above her head.

She dived over a little wall between the gardens and the fields.

Another bullet sailed harmlessly overhead.

Her eyes flicked out, looking for that sign of movement. 

She had to get within range first.

Something was wrong with this. 

She tensed, waiting and holding the gun ready, ignoring the cold around her.

The birds in the trees kept on singing.

The stillness was palpable.

Where were they?

Jyn took a deep breath in and fired upwards, into the highest branches of the trees on the other side of the field, the sound echoing out.

A flock of birds suddenly took out over the field, a dark shadow against the snow.

She held her breath, waiting for  _ something _ to happen.

She leaned against a tree, feeling the roughness of the bark through her coat. 

Reload. 

Cock the shotgun.

There they were!

Someone was running through the fields, mostly covered by the high stalks of wheat. 

She started running towards them, her breath fogging the air. 

Put the shotgun on her shoulder and aim, all in a heartbeat, in an action more familiar than breathing.

Keep moving towards where she had seen him go down, reloading as she went.

He was scrabbling for something on the ground.

She put her shotgun up and fired another warning shot into his shoulder. 

She kept walking, holding her gun ready.

“Where is it?” she demanded. “Where’s the weapon?”

He stopped struggling on the ground for a moment and she saw the gun, grabbing it and kneeling near him.

“Who else is here? Who else is out here?”

He was a donnish man, seeming more suited to the lecture theatre than the battlefield. 

She loaded another shot into the gun.

“I’m not going to ask you again.” She held the gun ready and steady, aiming it at his head. “How many are out here?”

He suddenly spoke, pushing himself upright. “I work alone, like you.” He looked at her, his eyes full of  _ something _ . “We always work alone.”

“What do you mean?”

“Where are you from? Paris?”

She nodded.

“Treadstone. Both of us.”

What?

“Treadstone?”

He nodded. “Paris?”

What was going on?

“Yeah, I live in Paris.”

The dying man looked directly at her. “Do you still get the headaches?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I get them.”

He smiled, blood starting to bubble at the corner of his lips. “I get such bad headaches. You know? Like when you’re driving a car at night. The headlights - I think it’s got something to -”

“What is Treadstone?”

He groaned, shifting himself. “Treadstone said, pills, go to Paris.” He let out another groan, his face turning into a grimace of agony. 

No! He couldn’t die! Not now! Not when she was so close!

“What is Treadstone? Is Treadstone in Paris?”

He looked down at the giant wound in his shoulder, leaning back. “Look at this,” he said, turning back to her. “Look at what they make you give.”

He groaned, clutching the wound in his stomach, falling backwards, letting out a long sigh before his breathing stopped and he lay there still.

She knelt there for a moment, the fog of her breath hanging in the air between them 

Treadstone.

She had worked for someone called Treadstone.

She wasn’t the only one either.

Jyn closed her eyes and  _ breathed _ . 

She leaned down, rummaging around in his pockets until she found -

There it was. 

His phone.

She stuffed it into her pocket, before standing up and running to the farmhouse.

They had to be safe.

They had to.

A bare few moments later, she was helping Kes and Shara shove the last of their possessions into their car.

She handed a smaller bag of money to them. “I’m so sorry about what happened. I hope this can make up for it.”

She tightened her lips and looked away before any emotions could make their way onto her face. 

Cassian stood there, looking at the family as they were getting ready to leave. 

She shoved her backpack at him. “I took three grand out, but the rest is yours. Take it.”

He shook his head. “I’m not leaving.”

Shara’s voice came from inside the car. “Get in, Cassian!”

He shook his head again, his voice firm. “I’m not leaving. I’m going to stay with you, Jyn.”

“This isn’t going to end any time soon, Cassian.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “Then I’m with you, Jyn. Until the end of the line. Whatever it takes.”

Her eyes drifted down to the bag between them. “This is enough to make a life, Cassian. You can get out of this life.”

His grip tightened on her shoulders and he pulled her close.

She whispered softly to him. “I don’t think anybody’s ever stuck around long enough with me when things got tough.”

The car started running and Jyn turned to look at it vanishing into the distance, Poe waving at her through the rear window.

She took a deep breath, Cassian still holding her. “We’re in this together now. Welcome home, Jyn.”

 


	3. ULTIMATUM

The French countryside flew by outside the car as Cassian drove them back to that seething mass of humanity, Paris. The radio blared between them, a mass of meaningless noise. 

Jyn stared idly out of the car window, her hand in her pocket, toying with the phone that she had taken from the dead assassin.

She bit her lip.

What was Treadstone?

How many more were out there?

Why did they want her dead?

The car shuddered a little as it passed from the little dirt roads over to the giant motorways of Paris, the house getting closer and closer together and the traffic getting worse.

Her thumb ran over the face of the phone in her pocket.

How much should she tell Cassian?

He looked over at her, a quick sideways glance while he was driving.

She pursed her lips. “Pull over.”

The road outside was beautiful and deserted, the lone profile of the Eiffel Tower rising in the distance. 

Cassian stood there, hands in pockets and his breath fogging the air between them. “What’s going on, Jyn?”

The phone felt like a lead weight in her pocket.

“Does the name Treadstone mean anything to you, Cassian?”

His face was completely confused and she looked into his eyes.

Nothing there but confusion. 

She let out a deep breath.

She pulled the phone out of her pocket, holding it between them.

“What’s this?”

Her voice was completely cold when she replied. “I took it from the operative I killed. He said we were part of the same thing - Treadstone, he called it.”

Cassian’s face was completely disbelieving. “What is this Treadstone?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. But I know that they’re willing to kill to hide whatever it is that they are.”

He nodded towards the phone. “And what’s that for?”

“I’m going to end it.”

The silence stretched between them, the gulf almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower in the distance. 

Jyn kept going, choosing her words carefully. “The operative said that Treadstone had called him and told him to go to Paris -”

“ -so you’re thinking that Treadstone will still be in his call list.”

She nodded. “Do you approve of this plan?”

He shrugged. “Would anything that I have to say change your mind?”

Jyn grinned, a tiny little thing, fitting the battery back into the phone and turning it on. She looked him straight in the eyes. “Are you ready?”

A short nod.

There was a short dial tone and the sound of a line clicking. A man’s voice came online, the sort of voice that demanded obedience. “Is Erso dead yet?”

Her voice was completely cold in reply. “Actually it’s the other way around.”

A long pause. “Hello, Jyn.”

“So is that what we’re into now?”

There was a twinge of nervousness in his voice. “Come on. It only goes two ways, Jyn. Come in and let us make this right, or we're gonna keep going until we're satisfied.”

She rolled her eyes. “You mean until you kill me?”

“I can’t fix this if I don’t know what the problem is. Tell me what you want and I’ll do my best to make it happen. Why don’t you talk to Cassian about it?”

Jyn let a note of dark humour slip into her voice. “I don’t think he gives a shit,” she said, watching Cassian stiffen out of the corner of her eye. “He’s dead.”

Another beat of silence.

“I’m sorry. How did that happen?”

“He was slowing me down.”

She waved off Cassian’s alarmed face, mouthing, “it’s an act”.

“Ok, Jyn, listen. All we’ve been doing right from -”

She cut him off. She needed to end it, not be dragged into a confrontation. “Enough. 9 PM. Paris. Tomorrow night. The Pont des Arts. You come alone. Take off your jacket and face east.”

She hung up the phone, mechanically disassembling it and stuffing the SIM card back into her pocket. 

When she looked back up, Cassian was looking at her, his face a confusing mess of fear and admiration. “So that’s it. You’re going to meet them and tell them to back off?”

Her hand twitched. “You think we have a better option?” she spat out before turning to get back in the car.

A hand grabbed her arm and she resisted the urge to throw Cassian over her shoulder. 

“Are you truly crazy? I thought you had a better plan than that,” he hissed. 

She tried to wrench her arm back but his grip was like steel. “As opposed to your plan? Booking it and running from an enemy we don’t even know? If we do that, we’ll be running forever. This way, we at least have a hope of fighting back.”

“Fight back? What is there to fight back against? Do you hear yourself?”

“I don’t know - I thought that an Interpol agent would at least realise that they can tail us anywhere - we don’t know how deep their resources are.”

“Are you insane? I know you want to know about your past, but this is too much danger! Did you think about what would happen to  _ me _ if you got yourself killed?”

Her voice was half a sob. “You think I don’t care? I’m trying to protect  _ us _ !”

He grabbed her other arm and tried to give her a little shake before folding her into his arms. “I know, I just can’t stand you putting yourself in this much danger.”

She gave a shaky little smile, before pulling herself away. “I know you’re not happy about this. But I need you to be my eyes.”

A little nod.

“If we know who’s after us, maybe we can leverage it - you don’t think I know that they’re going to try and trap us?” she said.

He let out a sigh of surrender.

Jyn rubbed her arm, certain that it was going to bruise later.

Cassian stood stiffly next to the car, the keys hanging off his fingers. “So what do you want to do, then?”

She shrugged. “I’m going to follow them after the meeting. No way in hell this guy turns up by himself. And then, I’m going to find out what’s actually going on and kill them all.”

Jyn looked over at Cassian, who seemed to be thinking over something. “You need a backup plan. If you’re going to carry out a systematic decapitation of an organisation, you’re going to need leverage,” he said.

She chewed her lip for a moment. “Leave it to me. Do as I say and we might be able to survive this.”   
  
  
  
  
  


\--

  
  
  
  


The Paris sunshine had suddenly emerged from the winter grey and was beating hard down on Jyn’s head as she tried to fight back a headache.

Her eyes flickered back and forth across the bridge, looking for signs of the man she had spoken with.

A motorcycle roared past where they were sitting on the pavement. 

Cassian tensed. 

She could feel his heart racing from where she sat.

She reached across the table, grabbing his wrist, running her thumb along his skin, feeling his pulse slow down.

The corner of his mouth quirked.

A van pulled up across the bridge.

Her eyes flickered towards it. 

She’d seen that van before.

Jyn picked up her coffee and under the guise of taking a sip, muttered so softly that only Cassian could hear, “They’re here.”

She kept her hand on his, feeling the bones and tendons tense. 

“Stay calm, Cassian.”

Cassian’s eyes looked over her shoulder, his eyes looking out over the bridge in the same manner that she had.

He cocked his chin very slightly at the bridge. “He’s there.”

“How long before they can start to trace the call?”

He took a deep breath. “Maybe a minute.”

She surreptitiously looked over her shoulder at the middle of the bridge at where the man was standing. 

There he was!

The man in the white suit.

Jyn gave him a quick nod and Cassian called for the bill. 

There was a flurry of movement and fabric before Jyn was walking by herself in the weak sunlight.

She started methodically assembling the Professor’s phone as she kept walking along the Bridge, brushing against other tourists, her hackles rising as the van circled the block again.

She slipped the SIM card in. 

Jyn’s finger hovered over the call button a moment.

The sound of a dial tone echoed in her ear.

A man’s voice came over the line. “Jyn?”

Her voice was completely cold. “I told you to come alone. Guess that was too complicated.”

She paused a moment, hearing the man splutter on the other end of the line.

She cut him off. “Why don’t we try this, then? I’m gone.”

Jyn pried the back of the phone off, pulling out the battery and the SIM card before throwing both into the Seine, the phone sinking into its depths with barely a splash.

She pushed her hands into her pockets, the spires of Notre Dame coming into view, blending into the crowds of tourists staring at its facade. 

A slight bump against her back. 

Jyn turned her head to see Cassian, a heavy camera around his neck, and she leaned in for a kiss. 

Before their lips could meet, she breathed out, “Did you manage to do it?”

He gave a quick nod and the world narrowed to the feeling of his arms around her and the roughness of his lips against her own before he pulled back.

She took a deep breath. “You know where to meet me after this.”

He pulled her in close once more, his kiss telling her  _ I love you _ and  _ come back to me _ , before she drew herself back, knowing that if she didn’t do it soon, she never would.

Jyn blinked back the tears in her eyes. “I’ll see you soon,” she said, before she vanished into the crowd, pulling her collar to cover the underside of her face. 

  
  
  
  


\---

  
  
  
  
  


Jyn took a deep breath as she faced the huge wall in front of her, her breath fogging the air with all of the words she wanted to say. 

All the lights in the building suddenly went dark and she jumped up, scaling it as fast as her mind and her body could process. 

Foot up onto an imperceptible nook.

Her fingers dug into the rough surface of the wall.

Jyn could feel a fingernail break, but she kept going.

There wasn’t enough time.

She needed to give Cassian as much time as possible. 

Breathe.

Climb.

Reach above.

Push off the foothold. 

Her breath was a white veil in front of her face. 

Jyn reached up to find - why was this hand hold deeper -

She grabbed the top of the wall and pulled herself over, listening to the chaos from outside the window for a moment.

The man in white’s voice floated out of the window. “ -what do you mean that we can’t tell who did this? We know who did this!”

Jyn hoisted herself up through the window, landing with a light thump before the world erupted into chaos around her.

The man in white was standing there, his mouth agape.

A security guard dived into action, jumping at her, before she pulled the gun from her waistband and levelled it at his head.

Jyn’s voice was tight. “Send everyone out of the room, or I kill everyone here.”

He nodded, his movements tight.

She took a deep breath.

Shit, Cassian was right. She hadn’t planned this enough.

“What do you want?” the man in white asked - what was his name, she knew his name, she knew this place, as familiar as breathing, she knew this, why couldn’t she remember.

Jyn took a deep breath. “Treadstone.”

He let out a snort, throwing his arm out to gesture at the room.

There were papers everywhere and a banked set of flames burning in an old fireplace.

Shit.

“This is Treadstone. Not much left there now, though,” he said.

She felt her brow furrow. “Are you Treadstone?”

The man laughed. “You know, I thought they were joking when they said you’d lost it.”

“What are you talking about? What am I?”

His eyes narrowed and he drew closer to her, his height looming over her. “You’re property of the US government. You’re a malfunctioning thirty million dollar weapon. You’re a total fucking catastrophe.”

Jyn shook her head. 

_ US government? _

No. She needed answers. What had happened to her?

A spiking pain lanced through her head.

_ Water _ .

_ Pain. _

_ The laughter of children _ .

She shook her head again. “What happened to me in Marseilles? Why are you trying? You sent me to kill someone -”

He rolled his eyes. “Wombosi. We didn’t send you to kill Wombosi. Anyone could have done that. He was supposed to be dead three weeks ago. And he was supposed to die in a way that no one could have suspected. I don’t send you to kill. I send you to be invisible.”

Another lance of pain.

She could hear a man’s voice. 

_ “Dawn? What are you doing?” _

_ The gun was cold in her hand. _

_ A child giggled in the distance. _

Jyn shook her head. 

The man in white was drawing closer to her. “What happened in Marseilles? I want to know what happened in Marseilles!”

_ A little girl giggled. _

_ She could feel the weight of the gun as she lowered it. _

“I don’t know what happened!”

“Bullshit! This is unacceptable, soldier! You hear me? You failed! You failed and you’re going to tell me why! You brought Kestrel Dawn to life. You put together the meeting with Wombosi! You found the security company. You broke into the office. You're the one who picked the yacht as the strike point. You picked the boat. You picked the day. You tracked the crew, the food, the fuel. You told us where. You told us when.”

The weight of her memories rushed into her head again.

_ The little girl giggled in the distance again. _

_ She levelled the gun at the back of someone’s head. _

_ A tug on her hand.  _

_ “Can you sing the London Bridge song for us again, Miss Dawn?” _

_ The gun was so cold in her hand. _

_ She looked at the gun again. _

_ The girl tugged on her hand again. _

_ Jyn closed her eyes.  _

_ She lowered the gun. _

_ The man turned around and then all she could remember was pain. _

_ Pain and then the cold and then the ship. _

Jyn shook her head, sucking in deep breaths. 

The man in white shoved her, knocking her to the ground. “What happened in Marseilles?”

A sharp little beep echoed from her wrist.

The man in white kicked her in the side.

Jyn let out a loud groan, pulling herself to her feet, grabbing the gun that had been knocked out of her hand. 

A small group of men rushed into the room, their guns all drawn and trained on Jyn.

She clutched her side, ignoring the pain.

The shrill little beep echoed through the room.

“You want to know what happened in Marseilles?”

Her heart was pounding, ready to beat out of her chest. 

She held the gun ready at her side.

The beeping continued to echo.

“Jyn Erso drowned in Marseilles. Do you hear me?”

The guns were steady in front of her, all aimed directly at her chest. 

She looked straight at the man in white. “Jyn Erso is dead. Do you understand? You’re going to leave me alone. I’m on my own side now.”

He cocked his head. “And what is going to make me do that?”

Jyn let a feral little smile break out over her face, her heart beating incredibly fast. 

“Because while we were talking, Cassian Andor was tearing apart your security systems and putting half the Treadstone files on the internet for the world to see.”

The tension in the room was sharp enough to cut with a knife. “You’d put all your secrets online for the world to see? Are you ready for -”

Jyn shook her head wearily. “No. Not all. Half.”

Realisation flickered over his face.

Good.

She clutched the gun in her hand. 

“If I even feel somebody behind me,” she shook her head. “I swear to God, or if someone hurts Cassian, there is no measure to how fast and how hard I will bring this fight to your doorstep.”

The guns stayed trained on her chest. 

The man in white finally nodded.

The guns didn’t move.

Jyn tightened her grip on her own little handgun.

The lead agent suddenly twitched, bringing his hand to his ear. 

There was a flurry of movement and the echo of bullets in a small room.

When she opened her eyes, the man in white was lying on the floor, his clothes turning red with his own blood.

The men were all looking at him.

A voice echoed in the room. “It’s done.”

Jyn flashed into action.

She ducked under the legs of one, her gun echoing through the room as she shot him.

She cocked it again.

Something caught her in the side and she fell backwards, clutching her ribs again.

She pulled the gun up, firing it blindly at the man coming closer to her. 

A flash and she was kicking another in the jaw hard enough that he hit the ground.

She ducked behind an abandoned table as the wall suddenly was riddled with bullets.

Take a deep breath.

She could hear the echo of footsteps on the stairs below.

Shit.

Jyn closed her eyes for a moment, hearing the heavy tread of boots coming closer towards her. 

She ducked out of cover, a quicksilver movement, her arm raising and the man dropping as easily as she took a breath.

Grab his gun and his dropped earpiece.

It exploded with noise in her ear.

“Shots fired on the second storey!”

Jyn looked around the room.

The sheer, impassable drop or the stairwell.

The footsteps started to grow louder outside.

Shit.

Jyn grabbed something from the body of one of the soldiers.

She climbed out of the window, hearing the heavy boot treads in the room.

Drop lightly onto the wall below, walking around it quickly.

The lights of the building flickered on and off again.

Shit.

Jyn slammed something the piton she’d taken into the wall, praying that it held.

It did.

With her other hand, she reached lower, slamming the other one in.

The lights flickered on above her head.

Do it again.

And again.

Her hand felt raw from the grip.

She took a deep breath, adjusting her grip.

Brace her feet on the wall.

Keep going again.

The ground was soft under her feet and she could feel the breath leave her body. 

The world started to spin around her.

She clutched her head, trying to get her bearings.

The lights in the windows flashed with the flicker of guns going off and the rat-tat-tat echoed down to her on the street.

She cast her eyes up there for a moment before looking back out at the lights of Paris. 

That life was behind her now.

Jyn half-walked, half-stumbled her way to the edge of the Quai, where Cassian was waiting for her, his profile sharp in the moonlight. 

She smiled. 

“Hey.”

He moved into action, trying to feel through her clothes for injuries while she grimaced in pain. “You done yet, Cassian?” she asked, trying to repress the joy in her voice.

He looked her up and down before crushing her lips to his, his eyes soft. She pulls him closer, trying to hold him as tight as she can, because God damn everything, she loves this man,  _ loves him _ and he’s perfect and home and everything she’s ever wanted.

His fingers are tangled in her hair and she’s pulling herself as high as she can and then they’re pulling away from each other, her lips instinctively following his before he rests his forehead on hers, a comfortable and warm weight.

His smile is soft, gentle. “Is it over?”

She just grins in reply, looping her arm through his as they walk along the Seine, the moonlight and the stardust over their heads and the stardust lights of the city in the distance, the bustle of life all around them.


	4. LEGACY

There was nothing but the stars above, the waves before her and the child beneath her heart. 

A set of footsteps echo from behind her, the soft patter of bare feet on a wooden porch and she forces herself to stay calm.

All these years and she can never truly stop being a Treadstone agent, never stop constantly looking over one shoulder or know that you can feel a bullet long before it hits you. 

A hand touches her gently on the shoulder, running down her arm and she turns to see Cassian’s face, less haggard and worn than she remembers from those chaotic weeks in Paris. Jyn leans into his touch, the calluses on his hands rough and gentle all at once against her skin. 

“It's a bit of a project, sorry,” he says, a little smile on his face. She remembers that smile, the one from the Quai as they ran from that terrifying world. 

But this time, he's holding a key out to her and she's not alone - she has Cassian and she has their child and she has the freedom that she fought so hard to win.

One day, she knows, one day it will come to an end. There will be storming their little home at the edge of the world and there will be someone who sees and recognises either of them and they will have to run again, but for now, there's just her love, her child and the stars above. 

She fits the key into the lock and opens the door to their new world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who read this. 
> 
> This was a fic born out of complete madness, finished in a record amount of time, which I am inordinately proud of. 
> 
> As always, thanks to melanoradrood and swdsnygeek. You guys are terrible and wonderful all at once.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to swdsnygeek, who enabled me into writing this. 
> 
> Also thanks to melanoradrood who was oddly supportive of someone who should really be studying and not writing. 
> 
> Comments are as appreciated as memories are to Jason Bourne.


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